Bath, readers – which some of you may be aware isn’t even in Scotland – is a pretty darn pleasant place to while away your days, all things considered. Packed from head to foot with gorgeous Georgian architecture the colour of set honey and nestling amid a clutch of lush green hills, it’s like a miniature version of Edinburgh in sandstone.
It’s big enough to be lively and have plenty of culture, with theatres and museums and venues and galleries and cinemas both multiplex and arthouse. Countless movies and TV shows have been shot here, from contemporary episodes of Roald Dahl’s Tales Of The Unexpected to a whole string of period costume dramas, and the “Little Theatre” cinema seen in Wes Anderson’s “Fantastic Mr Fox” is based on our real one.
It’s also very handily placed. Situated on or close to two main railway lines, you can hop on a train and ten minutes later be in Bristol, an ugly and unlikeable but still vibrant and eventful city. 30 minutes takes you to the classic English seaside resort of Weston-super-Mare, or the unfairly-maligned Swindon. Stretch it to an hour and you can be in a whole other country, in Barry Island or the impressive Welsh capital of Cardiff. 90 minutes gets you to London, and a couple of hours will see you in any of a bunch of places on the south coast (my personal favourite is Weymouth), all direct. You can even get straight to Edinburgh or Glasgow with only a single change of train at Bristol.
Having a car unlocks lots of other magical and fascinating places that are well within daytrip distance, like the ghost villages of Tyneham and Imber, the striking Cheddar Gorge, Longleat safari park and the world’s greatest museum ever, the batshit-mad Oakham Treasures, as well as Lacock, a quaint 13th-century townlet entirely owned by the National Trust, which gets invaded by Nazis every year.
(If you love a stately or historic home, you can join the Trust and visit somewhere new within 40 minutes’ drive just about every week for a year. Then you run out.)
It’s the second sunny day in Bath since last September, readers, so we’re going to go out and feed the wildlife, but we thought you’d enjoy a quick roundup of some of the distractions the Sturgeonite elements of the Scottish media are punting today in a desperate attempt to avoid dealing with the devastating contents of Alex Salmond’s epic evidence session at the Fabiani inquiry on Friday.
Iain Lawson’s fine blog today reveals that Nicola Sturgeon has already taken it upon herself to answer Jim Sillars’ complaint from Thursday – which was sent to Permanent Secretary Leslie Evans, not to the First Minister – about her breaking the Ministerial Code by casting doubt on the jury’s verdicts in the Alex Salmond trial.
It’s certainly an innovative approach to justice – we presume that if we were to murder someone tomorrow the police would now simply forward the allegations to us and allow us to find ourselves not guilty without any external input.
But it was the precise nature of Nicola Sturgeon’s self-acquittal that really left us with an uneasy feeling about the current state of Scotland.
In the end the four-hour session ran for almost exactly six hours, and Alex Salmond looked like he could have done another six standing on his head. Now, it would be only fair to acknowledge that this site was on his side before the start, but by any rational objective assessment the former First Minister delivered the performance of his life.
(We use “performance” there in the Lionel Messi sense, not the Laurence Olivier one.)
The contrast with every other witness who’s appeared before the committee was night and day. With Salmond there was no evasion, no hesitation, no forgetting, no “I’ll get back to you on that in writing”. (We recommend the Twitter feed of Scotland Speaks for some choice clips.)
Every question was answered fully, directly, fluently and immediately, without recourse to notes, and the content was never less than devastating from his opening statement to the final surprise bombshell. We were exhausted just watching it.
His words, tone and body language all absolutely radiated candour, solemnity and honesty. When the SNP members tried to trip him up on some arcane point or other, he was on them like an extremely calm hawk, methodically tearing their assertions to ribbons with the correct fact or quote at his fingertips, and ice in his veins.
Salmond came across like a man who’d been planning this day for almost a year and wasn’t going to mess it up. And he didn’t. Heavens, how he didn’t.
From 12.30 this afternoon, Alex Salmond will attempt to tell the people of Scotland the truth about what happened to him in the last two years – a grave injustice which saw an innocent man have his reputation dragged through the gutter, be placed under incredible personal stress, be left greatly impoverished by proving his innocence, and then have the jury’s verdict endlessly traduced by the media and a gang of criminal conspirators protected from the consequences of their lies by lifelong anonymity.
His job will be a difficult one. Every single person in the room will be bitterly hostile to him – the four Unionist committee members because he’s Alex Salmond, and the others because he represents a deadly threat to the First Minister.
The inquiry’s convener – a woman sacked by Salmond years ago – will attempt to prevent him from presenting large swathes of evidence, despite having made him swear to tell “the whole truth”. The SNP members will try to run down the four-hour session with questions designed to only deflect from the real issue – the actions and behaviour of the Scottish Government. Andy Wightman will probably just cry.
We’ll be extremely surprised if there aren’t some attempts to slyly re-try Mr Salmond and paint him as a guilty man who cheated justice, and to drag up salacious details of the allegations in an effort to smear him in front of the cameras.
We believe Alex Salmond will be more than equal to the task.
When the Faculty Of Advocates – the most senior body of lawyers/QCs in the country – is handing out barely-veiled smackdowns like this to the First Minister, then you know you’re in some pretty uncharted jungle.
Is the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service of Scotland institutionally corrupt? I don’t believe so, but it’s certainly a troubled organisation.
The cost and reputational damage to it from the Rangers FC case are of a magnitude never seen before, and the actions in the Alex Salmond case and related actions by the Lord Advocate and Crown Agent have called its independence into question.
There must be structural change and individuals must be held to account.
I had hoped that Stewart Stevenson, the new National Secretary and convener of the Conferences Committee, would be similarly inclined.
In summary, my endeavours have been ignored.
In the three months since our election (supposedly more than halfway towards a spring conference), and despite repeated emails, documents and requests for meetings, the Conferences Committee has never been convened.
As a result I have resigned from both the committee and the SNP, and the reasons for my doing so are outlined below.
For the record, we thought you should see what the Scottish Parliament considers to be the appropriate treatment of an “Urgent Question”.
For a little over eight minutes, the Lord Advocate was allowed to ignore and avoid a series of questions put to him regarding the abjectly corrupt Crown Office’s recent interference with the work of the Fabiani inquiry by redacting evidence which in no way identified anyone as a complainer in the trial of Alex Salmond.
By the committee’s rules, if it’s not on the committee website then it doesn’t exist, and the redacted parts are – belatedly – no longer on the website. (As far as we can make out the unredacted version was finally removed around midnight last night.)
Farcically, she also denied even knowing that this question from James Matthews of Sky News was about Geoff Aberdein, who is the subject of all the redacted sections, which are all about the meeting Matthews was asking her about.
The First Minister is a liar and has all but given up on even the most token pretence otherwise. She is a disgrace to Scotland.
Skip_NC on The Land Of No Laws: “Yes,I’ve read it. In fact it’s on the side table next to me right now. I disagree with your characterization…” May 17, 18:40
Rev. Stuart Campbell on The Land Of No Laws: “Unlawfully. He has no power to cut the game short.” May 17, 18:31
Rev. Stuart Campbell on The Land Of No Laws: “” I see you managed to forget Rangers 1972 “triumph” in the UCWC.” Well, yes, because I was fucking five…” May 17, 18:30
twathater on The Land Of No Laws: “100% with you on that Northy, ffs they are all poseurs who jist want tae hang on to each others…” May 17, 18:18
sam on The Land Of No Laws: “I asked “Search assist” this question: “In what ways can a country be a victim?” Here is the answer. “Ways…” May 17, 17:53
100%Yes on The Land Of No Laws: “What They Never Tell You About the Picts. It was very interesting just in case you fancy watching. youtube.com/watch?v=bzXRIEQumGE” May 17, 17:40
Iain Ross on The Land Of No Laws: “The fact that the last game ended as it did was a disgrace and Celtic should be penalised. However, for…” May 17, 17:09
Mark Beggan on The Land Of No Laws: “What’s worse reading the comments or writing about the comments? What with breast implants being so expensive these days. I…” May 17, 17:06
Northcode on The Land Of No Laws: “Watching folk playing Tiddlywinks or Dominoes is more interesting than watching the fitba. Painting the dots onto dominoes tiles and…” May 17, 16:49
sarah on The Land Of No Laws: “An added “oddity” to ponder. 99.9999999 times out of 100, the top team play the last game of the season…” May 17, 16:18
Northcode on The Land Of No Laws: ““Have you actually read that book?” Yes, have you? Because if you have you don’t appear to have grasped Herman’s…” May 17, 16:17
Skip_NC on The Land Of No Laws: “You should be right and back in the days when we were operating under the laws written by Stanley Rous…” May 17, 16:10
Northcode on The Land Of No Laws: ““I think having your whole worldview based on the fundamental belief Scotland is a ‘victim’ is profoundly counterproductive… ” Not…” May 17, 15:50
Skip_NC on The Land Of No Laws: “Have you actually read that book? The author gives all the credit and glory to the union with England.” May 17, 15:48
Doug on The Land Of No Laws: “You can also read Ken Mcgoogan, How the Scots invented Canad” May 17, 15:40
Southernbystander on The Land Of No Laws: “Breastplate – we live much of our lives with various purse strings controlled by someone / something else. That does…” May 17, 15:32
Northcode on The Land Of No Laws: ““Er, I was just commenting on what you quoted:” Yes… and here is the comment you made: “… all those…” May 17, 15:24
Northcode on The Land Of No Laws: “Apologies for the question marks showing in the hyphenated text in my comments where a hyphen should show. I switched…” May 17, 15:14
Breastplate on The Land Of No Laws: “Southernbystander, as long as Scotland has its purse strings managed by another nation, it will remain a victim. How can…” May 17, 15:10
Southernbystander on The Land Of No Laws: “Er, I was just commenting on what you quoted: ‘Historian and author Professor Arthur Herman (born 1956 – American historian…” May 17, 15:03
Mark Beggan on The Land Of No Laws: “Try taking responsibility for your own life and stop blaming dead people.” May 17, 15:01
Northcode on The Land Of No Laws: “Here’s another: The Reduction of Complex Causality Fallacy Scotland’s intellectual explosion came from: Centuries of universal parish education, a Presbyterian…” May 17, 14:44
Northcode on The Land Of No Laws: “Four ancient universities, universal literacy, a legal system older than England’s, and a philosophical tradition stretching back to Buchanan… and…” May 17, 14:32
George Ferguson on The Land Of No Laws: “Comprehensive article Stu. I don’t expect anything to change but an interesting take on Off the Ball about Dunfermline fans.…” May 17, 14:28
Little Surbiton-on-Forth on The Land Of No Laws: “Hurting much, Rev? Fact is these uppity fenian immigrant bassas managed to win aginst all odds. Sickening, intit? I see…” May 17, 14:25
Young Lochinvar on The Land Of No Laws: “Once the ba’s oan the slates they should have nulled it and concluded the matter with a toss of a…” May 17, 14:16
Owen Mullions on The Land Of No Laws: “No excuses for the neds on the pitch but the referee Don Robertson has told the SPFL delegates that he…” May 17, 14:09
Southernbystander on The Land Of No Laws: “Tangentially – where do they get all this injury time from these days, and at the end of both halves?…” May 17, 14:08
Southernbystander on The Land Of No Laws: “It is a case of ‘is’ and ‘was a joke’ not being mutually exclusive. Scotland did punch above it weight…” May 17, 13:45
Lorncal on Steadying The Ship: “Northcode: that was funny. Such fine epithets have been said before now about psychopathic serial killers. Not saying that Dr…” May 17, 13:27
